how is Lee not a hero?

The honest answer is that he fought for the losing side.

>>33890278
You're obviously not from Virginia. They idolize him there.

There's like two monuments to him within a 25 mile radius of my home. People just don't talk about him because "muh slavery" and other dumb shit.

>>33890278
the battle of gettysburg should've never happened

>>33890278
>Competent commander=legend
When?

>>33890278
Why would we honor someone who is singlehandedly responsible for 785,000 - 1,000,000+ dead?
All he had to do was accept Lincolns offer to serve the Union.

>>33890927
>singlehandedly
No.

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Bobby Lee fugged up pretty good when he kept up the exact same mode of operation within his command after the death of Jackson and the absence of Stuart during the Gettysburg campaign

it was like him and tommy jackson kept winning so many gatdamn miracles in the field that he couldn't fathom a different way of doing it; he sent vague and abstract orders with multiple variables to corps commanders Longstreet and Ewell with the assumption that both of them, especially Ewell, would simply act as Jackson did and have the ungodly martial prowess he did

also jesus christ bobby just listen to longstreet a time or two leading up to pitched battle, i'm sorry you lost your tommy but fuq sake buddy we're fighting for independence here

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>>33890278
Georgian here, Robert E. Lee has a statue in our town. Nigs can't read so they'll never take it down. He's considered one of the greatest generals of all time down here.

>THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!

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>>33890977
iunno about that last bit, but god bless if John Brown Gordon ain't one of my heroes. mind-boggling how he got wounded so much without enduring an amputation or death

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/books/gordon.pdf

this was a phenomenal little read, and a really neat look at the personalities of corps commanders too

It depends on what region of the US you're from.

People in the North might view Lee as a racist redneck and Sherman a legend. People in the South might view Sherman as a murderous marauder and Lee a hero.

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>>33890278
>explain how Lee wasn't a legend

pic related

>>33891021
>He was a devout and humble Christian gentleman. I know of no man more beloved at the
South, and he was probably the most popular Southern man among the people of the North.

Fug, that's deep.

>>33890278
I'd say history has been fairly kind to him. The CSA was in a very poor strategic situation throughout the war and it was only through the astute generalship of men like Lee (and consistent Union incompetence) that they held out so long. I think Lee could have only won by taking Washington, D.C., but doing so would have required everything the CSA had and risked its destruction. Lee didn't want to roll that dice, so he tried to beat the tar out of the Union until they sued for peace. That didn't work, and then Grant showed up and Lee now had a worthy opponent.

I believe Lee does deserve credit for using his moral authority to peacefully disband his forces and set a precedent for other Confederate commanders. The alternative would have a guerrilla war that would have seen the entire South devastated to an extent worse than anything Sherman inflicted. Most Southern white men would have been killed and their families subjected to hunger, disease, homelessness, and random violence. When the guerrillas were finally stamped out, an even more vindictive Union might only offer exile the survivors willing to finally come to terms.

>>33890278
Besides the obvious part of fighting for the losing side: using genius to win sweeping victories > using genius to turn clusterfucks into Pyrrhic victories

>>33891076
>“My extraordinary escapes from wounds in all the previous battles had made a deep impression upon my comrades as well as upon my own mind,” Gordon wrote. “If I had allowed these expressions of my men to have any effect upon my mind, the impression was quickly dissipated when the Sharpsburg storm came and the whizzing Miniés, one after another, began to pierce my body.”

A ball struck Gordon in the leg, passing through his right calf. A second ball hit him in the same leg. An hour later another ball tore through his left arm, tearing tendons and muscles. A fourth struck his shoulder. Weak from loss of blood, Gordon struggled to lead his men. Seeing the right of his line in jeopardy from enfilading fire, he started to walk there but was struck by a fifth ball that slammed through his left cheek and shattered his jaw. Gordon fell face down into his hat. He noted later that he might have drowned in his own blood had not a “thoughtful Yankee” earlier given the hat a bullet hole that allowed the blood to drain out.

fukken amazing that he fought in first Manassas as a company commander or something and at Appamatox he controlled half of Lee's army, albeit on its last legs

the man had elan, and if i can capture a full quarter of that elan in my life i'll be satisfied

>>33890278
Where do you live OP? Lee is considered a hero all over the south, especially in Virginia.

Rebels are traitor scum, that's why

It's amazing how /k/ is always so statist unless it's for the few special snowflakes like nazis or CSA

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>>33891191
>/k/ is always so statist

>>33891200
/tv/ will always side with gov against rebels except for a few isolated cases.

alwahs talk about law and order unless one of their few handfull of rights they care about (basically 2nd Amendment) is threatened

>>33891243
The only "rebels" I see /k/ not near-universally support are commie proxy armies. Do you need to get blacklisted right now?

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>>33891022
Nah, I'm from NY and even we learned about Lee as being an excellent commander who put allegiance to his state over allegiance to the union.

Even little Romanaboo Japanese girls know that he was the real deal.

>>33891243
except this is /k/, not /tv/

>>33890278
Didn't they just remove his statue along with 3 others in Now Orleans because of his southern affiliation? It was on the news about 2 weeks ago.

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>>33890888
Trips of truth. The Commonwealths hometown hero.

>>33890888
Darlington Heights/Farmville bro here.

goddamn right we do.

>>33891050
I don't get line warfare

>>33890278
Lee was a really interesting guy and had a lot of class. It's a shame that Mitch "the bitch" Landrieu is trying to tear down a statue of him.

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>>33890278
inb4 I get called Cletus.
I'm from Massachusetts.

OP's premise is false. Lee is viewed as a worthy enemy in the same light that Rommel is in the North, and he's basically the Old South's greatest hero.

Whether this reputation is merited by the facts is questionable. The situation that Lee had to work with at the beginning of the Civil War was far, far better than the hand that Washington was dealt at the beginning of the Revolution. Furthermore, it was Lee's decision to invade the North in '63 that led to the major defeat at Gettysburg and the massive loss of manpower that accompanied it.

What's the point I'm making? It is that Lee bears considerable responsibility for the loss of a war that the South actually had a considerable chance of winning had it been run better. Many of the problems the Confederacy had (namely its political ones) were outside of his control, but its military failures were the product of his overall strategy being deficient. Had he followed in the example of Washington and used a Fabian strategy rather than trying to win the war by trying to force the Union to the negotiating table ala WWII Japan, the Confederacy may well have succeeded in its aims.

>>33890278
Because he quit

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>>33890278
In my public school education in Illinois they basically treated him as "extremely competent and honorable commander who happened to fight for the losing side". His reputation wasn't "tainted" the way that the rest of the confederacy was.

>>33890278
In what world do you live he's not a hero?
I'm in Yankee land and they still pretend the South is literally Hitler but we gave props to Lee.